Now, I am definitely a ‘stats and analytics’ guy. But, I am also a ‘watch the games’ and ‘pay attention’ guy. You can’t have one without the other and expect to get the full picture of a sports team. This is where Pro Football Focus recently made a misstep when they ranked every single quarterback in college football. You see, they ranked Brian Lewerke as the 76th best QB in college football and only cited stats in their decision-making process, and they didn’t mention his injuries once.
Here is what they said about Lewerke, for reference:
“Over the past two seasons, Lewerke has thrown the most turnover-worthy passes in the country at 34 and that only gets compounded by the fact that he’s only thrown 21 big-time throws in that span. His 66.3% adjusted completion percentage over the past two years really tells a tale of the struggles he’s seen when throwing downfield. The arm talent is there, he just needs a season of putting it all together.”
This should infuriate any MSU fan as we all know that Lewerke was playing through a devastating injury last season. Heck, he even admitted he couldn’t lift his arm over his head but still played through it. Failing to take Lewerke’s injury into account and solely basing his ranking off of stats is simply foolish. We are talking about someone who, before his injury, was even in the fringe of the preseason Heisman Trophy hype last year.
